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Showing posts from December, 2004

trek 3

GREG: You can badmouth Season Three all you want, but I’d follow Kirk, Spock and McCoy anywhere. In fact, I’m not ashamed to admit that when “Turnabout Intruder” (the final episode on the seven disc set) spun itself out I felt an empty pit in my stomach. How could NBC cancel this show? Sure it became goofy. What do you expect when your executive producer leaves, your budget is cut in half, and Leonard Nimoy is bitchin’ up a storm! RANDY: Watching the extras it becomes clear that cast and crew alike knew Season Three was going to be the “final frontier” for Trek. The year kicked off with “Spock’s Brain” in which the science officer’s logic center is kidnapped by child-like aliens in need of a new “controller” for their underground playland. This episode is the focal point for most fans’ vitriolic hatred and a signpost of further goofiness ahead. And it’s true, Roddenberry would have never let a story go quiet so far off the deep end. GREG: But that’s exactly what makes Season Three so m...

mary poppins

GREG: You need to take a step back to appreciate what Disney accomplished with Mary Poppins. Forget about the rather callous marketing machine the studio has become and let yourself be enveloped by the innocent genius of it all. As far as non-animated films go, this is far and away Walt’s best work. RANDY: Little wonder, since he pursued the project for decades to secure the rights. This movie just feels like it has that little extra “oomph” – the perfect casting with Dick VanDyke and Julie Andrews (in her first film role), pioneering combination of live-action and animation, and songs so catchy they wrap themselves around your brain stem ‘til you beg for mercy. GREG: That’s not a very Poppins-esque expression, but it’s dead on. The plot has Poppins (a magical figure who, as her calling card states, is “practically perfect in every way”) answering the call of two precocious kids under the thumb of their distracted parents. From there we bounce from one misadventure to the next picking ...